The influence of Confucianism on Chinese culture.
my country’s modernization is taking the road of socialism. Socialist modernization requires both the construction of material civilization and the construction of spiritual civilization.
In the process of realizing socialist modernization in our country, one of the serious problems that exists is that the construction of spiritual civilization cannot keep up with the construction of material civilization. In the construction of the four modernizations in recent years, due to the bourgeois liberalization ideas The epidemic has spread, and very serious corruption phenomena have appeared in the country, such as corruption and bribery, reselling and fraud, all seeking money, pretending to be public for personal gain, and forgetting one's duty for profit. This cannot help but remind people of the essence of the distinction between public and private and the debate between justice and benefit in Confucianism, which are still beneficial to the construction of our spiritual civilization today and should be inherited and carried forward. From this we can see that Confucianism can still make a contribution to the realization of socialist modernization today and has a certain vitality.
A country with complete sovereignty must have its own independent economy, independent politics, and independent culture. The so-called independent culture refers to the language, customs, ideological beliefs and other cultural factors that are created by the people of her own country or absorbed and digested by others to maintain its survival and development. Among them, thought is the most important. Be active and become the core of these factors. If a country has a long history, a vast territory, and a large number of people, then it must have a strong cohesive force to maintain the traditional culture that allows the people of this country to survive and develop.
For a traditional culture like this to completely abandon it and have a complete break with it, it would be impossible, unnecessary, and even more inappropriate. This kind of traditional culture, which has lasted for thousands of years and has not been extinct despite undergoing drastic changes, has a lot of dross but also a lot of essence. The proper attitude towards treating her today is how to correctly guide her on the road to modernization. Get rid of the rigid and rotten parts of it and preserve and develop the vital and healthy parts so that it can continue to make contributions in the process of realizing modernization. Chinese traditional culture belongs to this type of culture, and Chinese Confucianism belongs to this type of thought. ?
Confucianism has a profound influence on Chinese culture. The feudal society for thousands of years has taught nothing more than the traditional ideas of responsibility, temperance and loyalty and filial piety, which are all combined with feudal rule. result. Therefore, Confucianism is the mainstream thought in our contemporary times.
The positive impact of Confucian thought and culture on reality
The essence of Confucian thought and culture has been tempered and accumulated in historical inheritance, and has become the wisdom, spirit and virtue of our nation, which has the uniqueness of mankind. **Permanent value.
1. Confucianism proposed a series of moral categories, propositions, and thoughts, which enriched the treasure house of traditional Chinese morality. Confucian culture is a culture of human ethics. It proposes benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, trust, gentleness, kindness, respect, frugality, yielding, loyalty, filial piety, integrity, integrity, shame, etc., which are very rich in content, and each word can Write a big article. If their general meanings are abstracted, selected, processed, and developed, they can become the essence.
2. The rational spirit that breaks through destiny, ghosts and gods resists the erosion of religion on people’s thoughts. Confucianism is cautious about the issue of ghosts and gods. "The Master does not talk about monsters, power, chaos, and gods." "If you don't know life, how can you know death." It has an atheistic tendency and denies the existence of supernatural saviors and the other side of the world. At the same time, it guides people to focus on "real world" life and solving practical problems.
Under the influence of Confucianism, Chinese people tend to rely on human forces to solve practical problems, forming a habit of not easily asking gods and worshiping Buddhas.
3. The people-centered doctrine of "the people are the foundation of the country" embodies the sense of social responsibility of taking the world as its own responsibility. Confucianism has always attached great importance to the role of the common people and believes that the common people are the foundation of national tranquility. "The people are the foundation of a country, and the foundation is the foundation of the country's peace."
4. The ecological ethics of "harmony between man and nature" provides us with a broad ideological and cultural foundation for building ecological civilization. Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism all pursue the harmony and unity between man and nature. Taoism advocates "Tao follows nature" and returning to simplicity is a retrogressive return.
"Golden mean" has a dialectical approach and pursues a just right "moderate", but it lacks operability. Confucius only said, "Knock on both ends and it will be exhausted." There is no certain rule for how to choose one, and the parties need to use it flexibly according to the specific situation at that time. As a result, people use "golden mean" to adopt a stance, attitude and method that is impartial, neither yin nor yang, neither yin nor yang, neither forward nor backward, no matter what problem they encounter. This is manifested as eclecticism, especially in In the face of major issues of right and wrong, failure to take a clear-cut stand and lack of principle and fighting spirit make people become wall-riding, slippery and act according to the prevailing circumstances. Confucius sighed: "The Doctrine of the Mean is a virtue, it's so perfect! The people have been around for a long time." The true "doctrine of the mean" is rarely implemented among the public. Confucius and Mencius hated those who misapplied the "gold mean" and called them "hometown wishes" and "thieves of virtue." In fact, they learned it from the "gold mean" of Confucius and Mencius.
"Moderate" is contradictory to the courage to take risks, reform and innovation. Lu Xun said that the moderation of the Chinese people makes it difficult to carry out change; if you propose to open a window in a dark room, everyone will not agree; if you deliberately say that you want to remove the roof, everyone will definitely oppose it; in the end, after compromise, Everyone agreed to open the window. This example shows that in order to break the obstacles to change caused by the "moderate" way of thinking, revolutions and reforms sometimes have to use excessive means. The result is that they are not "moderate" and are most likely to go to extremes and extremes.
6. "Reciting without writing, trusting but loving the past" is not conducive to theoretical innovation. Confucius' "narrating without writing, believing in but loving the ancient" means that he does not create new creations, but only edits literature and classics to expound the subtle words of the sages and loves the ancient times from the bottom of his heart. Especially for Yao, Shun, and Yu, I recall them fondly and admire them endlessly, saying, "It's so majestic that it has success, it's so brilliant that it has articles", "It's so gloomy that it's literary". Confucius's image of learning is "editing the Spring and Autumn Period, deleting poems and books, and prefaced Yi Zhuan". This style of study affects future generations, making it more difficult to be new and innovative, and seriously hinders theoretical innovation. Indeed, in the field of ancient Chinese thought and culture, it is difficult for the descendants of Confucius to innovate. Even if they have their own new ideas, they must be incorporated into the annotations of the works of their predecessors; It is passed down by the name of the ancients. There are many collections of ancient Chinese classics and histories. Liang Qichao said that "history" accounts for 70% to 80% of them. What scholars do is to write poems, paint, carve stones, and annotate the scriptures of sages. This way, there is no political risk, and at the same time, they are elegant and appear talented. In modern times, Kang Youwei wanted to promote reform and put the banner of Confucius on it. He wrote "Confucius' Examination of Reform" and described Confucius as a reformer.
The style of study of "telling but not writing, believing but loving the past" has also brought about the thinking inertia of respecting ancestral precepts and worshiping sages. This inertia has become a breeding ground for personality worship, dogmatism, and conservatism, making the task of emancipating the mind a forerunner of social changes and reforms very arduous. The May 4th Movement criticized "taking Confucius' right and wrong as right and wrong", the Yan'an Rectification Movement criticized Wang Ming's dogmatism, the great discussion on the standard of truth criticized the personality cult and the "two whatevers", and the "only books and only the highest" that have been overcome since the reform and opening up. " are all manifestations of the inertia of "telling without writing, believing in the past" in different historical periods, and the magic weapon to overcome this inertia is to emancipate the mind, seek truth from facts, and keep pace with the times, which is "one center, three perspectives" ", that is, focusing on the actual problems of my country's reform and modernization construction, focusing on what is being done, focusing on the application of Marxist theory, focusing on theoretical thinking on practical problems, and focusing on new practices and new developments.
7. The experiential general thinking of "valuing principles over weapons" does not meet the development requirements of modern science and technology. The way of thinking of traditional Chinese culture with Confucianism at its core is dialectical, but it is general, holistic and pure, and empirical and intuitive. Many Confucian articles talk about self-cultivation, human ethics, and society, not rational thinking, but moral experience. For example, Mencius said, "I nourish my awe-inspiring spirit and fill it between heaven and earth." Yan, all things are nurtured in Yan.”
When exploring things, I don’t like precise combing, scientific experiments, logical generalizations, or having to do everything by myself. I like to generalize things, improve them, talk endlessly about the “Tao” about heaven, earth, and people, and don’t like specific things. Dismissive and subtle real "devices", this kind of thinking does not meet the requirements of modern scientific and technological development.